


Save vs. Cute or Die

by sciencemyfiction



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 2014verse slipped in there, But also cute I mean it's not meant to be angsty exactly, Dark, Gen, I Don't Even Know, Nonsense, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-09
Updated: 2013-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-04 18:10:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/713560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencemyfiction/pseuds/sciencemyfiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel versus Cute Things</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Castiel Versus Kitten

Castiel's vision swam as he walked purposefully towards his destination. He had balked at first, not liking how vague the directions were between the hospital and the hiring hall for the hound-driven bus service that Bobby had recommended to him, but a little bit of coaxing and another dose of morphine had helped to make up his mind. "Just take the next bus when you get there, and try not to talk to anybody on the way there," Bobby had told Castiel wisely after wiring, however grudgingly, the necessary monetary value to transport one ex-Angel safely from the hospital down to where Dean and Sam were currently, stupidly, facing off against Pestilence. Though he was a generally willful person, Castiel had not argued Bobby's sound logic. This, again, might be something he should attribute to the painkillers that were allowing him to function, but he liked to think that he and Bobby got along. He _had_ gotten into a small confrontation with one or two nurses about how much of the hospital's supply he could be permitted to take with him when he left, and was still somewhat miffed that he had not won the argument. 

Over the phone, Dean had warned Castiel that this consisted of eerily familiar behavior, and requested he let the matter go. So he had. The nurses, at least, were satisfied.

He was grateful for the painkillers that they had been willing to prescribe to him, and the fact that the nurses had not complained too much about his decision to check out of the hospital while still injured. Thanks to Sam's wisdom, he had aborted his initial plan to simply walk out, which Bobby had patiently explained might result in Castiel being bound and sedated by the hospital personnel, that he remain right where he was until his body recovered. Given his current lack of angelic resources, he had understood the importance of playing along with human bureaucracy enough to at least give it a try. Once he'd made it clear that he wanted to seek additional medical care from his preferred physician, who was located elsewhere and had all his medical records, Castiel had then had to confirm that he did not want to release said records and, finally, gotten himself free of the hospital staff with a request that he be careful. Castiel was not especially good in social situations or lying, but Dean had walked him through it, explaining that the nurses would supply the most likely explanation for Castiel's reluctance to reveal his personal information. "Just let it get uncomfortably quiet. They'll fill in the blanks for you." With Dean's words in mind, he had answered that request with a small smile, since he saw no point in making a promise he had no intention of keeping.

It had all worked, oddly. One of the nurses, a large man with dark hair and eyes and a friendly smile, had even helped Castiel to get the directions he needed to find the location of the 'Greyhound Station'. Though they looked nothing alike superficially and Castiel could not see deep enough to compare their spiritual visages, he had been strongly reminded of Dean when the large man wished him well.

Now he waited until his eyes refocused, counting impatiently until his body got itself back in order. At six, he ducked his head. The slight dizziness he felt had begun to transform into a pit of nausea in his stomach, and he had a strange urge to sink down and pray. The vantage, with his head down, let him catch a flash of green and he was struck suddenly and completely by the absolute beauty of the leaves of grass breaking through concrete at the edge of the street. He was standing near some manicured lawn belonging to an office building, apparently, but the detail barely registered in his mind. Weak, smashed up flowers grew on some roughly manicured bushes further up the path he stood beside. Castiel ignored them. Here, where the lawn gave way to the sidewalk, it was only green, green, green. How thrilling was nature, that triumphed over the hubris of man! Here, in the tiniest things, Castiel could so easily see the work of his Father. It lightened his heart. 

All too quickly, that happiness faded away into an almost physically painful pang of some less enjoyable emotion. He refused to accept that it was regret, but it seemed suspiciously close, and he tried to return to his fascinated ogling of the blades of grass, missing that simpler wonder that had come before thoughts of his Father brushed it away. Maybe, just a trifle, Castiel was using his morphine addled mind and his mission to distract himself from the work of his Father that most frightened and discomfited him. Namely: his recent acquisition of humanity.

He was tired. Tired! He had never dared to imagine how different the feeling was when it was simple, mundane, physical exhaustion. Spiritual exhaustion, by comparison, seemed entirely manageable, a commonplace experience from the last several eons; he hated how little he could control his body's need for sleep, now, and worried that the vessel was trying to make up for lost time. There were numerous tiny incongruities that he was vividly aware of for what felt like the first time. Castiel's feet were sore in his worn leather shoes from walking, his chest a mess of aches. Eventually he had found a walking pace that didn't leave him breathless with pain from aggravating his ribs, but it was a challenge. Just in general, being human was very much a challenge. He worried that he might not be strong enough to handle it. 

As for the journey on which he was currently delaying, staring intently down at the ground beneath his feet, there was a definite perspective to be gained from the whole thing. For the first time in his very, very long life, Castiel appreciated the convenience of cars, even if he still didn't understand why Dean had preferred them to being flown to important locations. Had Castiel been able to call on any angels to transport him as he liked from place to place, he would have been glad to take the faster route. For now, though, he would have settled even for a car. It was much faster than walking. 

Mew, said the grass, interrupting Castiel's circuitous train of thought. 

Castiel blinked, hard. 

There, behind the tiny blades of grass and a few dandelions, curled up so small as to fit in the palm of his hand, was a dainty, fuzzy looking thing that appeared to be alive. Its coloration was gray but it had striking blue eyes, and they were boring into him with a font of insurmountable curiosity.

He stared. 

Mew, said the kitten. 

"Hello," Castiel said back, feeling oddly vulnerable as he clambered down into a crouch, against the aches and protests of his painful bruises. He did not examine his reasons for doing so, and would have been hard pressed to explain the urge if asked. It looked so very soft, though. He couldn't help but want to touch it, a little. The ball of fluff, with its big blue eyes, blinked and unfurled in response to Castiel's slightly increased proximity. Encouraged, he held out one hand, fingers curling slightly in what he supposed was meant to be an invitation.

Mew. The kitten stretched languorously, rising to its four tiny feet and yawning at him. Twitching its tail, it licked one paw, paused thoughtfully to look up at Castiel and flicked its whiskers. It cocked its head at him and, after mewling again, walked nearer to his outstretched fingers (he stretched them slightly further, hoping to encourage the contact, privately delighted by the response) only to turn away at the last second, staying just slightly out of reach. 

Castiel was inexplicably irked by this, and sighed in frustration, turning his head away in a failed attempt to conceal the emotion. He let his hand hang limp, elbow braced on his knee where he crouched, and told himself firmly that he didn't care. Furthermore, it wouldn't do to let himself be embarrassed by a kitten. As he understood it, humans did not generally permit such things to occur. And Castiel was human now.

Mew, said the kitten very coyly, and attacked his fingers. 

He was caught entirely unaware.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter written for KenningRaven, who requested Castiel + kitten.


	2. Castiel vs. Caterpillar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time jump back to just after Dark Side of the Moon. I...might rearrange these to be chronological later. I'm not sure.

Castiel remembers the future that wasn't. Castiel remembers, and that's why when Dean and Sam Winchester come back from Heaven, his immediate instinct is to drown himself in pills and absinthe, liquor and sex. He stumbles out of the motel, and he walks-- doesn't fly, _walks_ \-- up the street to a pharmacy. 

Invisibly, he takes what he wants from the store while its clerks are busy closing up for the night. Then he flies to a liquor store, and he takes what he wants there, too, getting a sort of unearthly chill from his reckless selfishness. 

There are many things about being human that Castiel is only learning for the very first time, though he is eons old. Selfishness is the most wretchedly alluring, the most terrifying. He is weak in this moment, weak as he will be in the future, and he knows it, and he doesn't care. And that is-- awful. Wonderful.

Unfortunately, absinthe isn't easy to come by in the world as it currently is, having been outlawed by most countries Castiel frequently visits for being too poisonous or deadly or some other reason that only applies to humans. He supposes he is well on his way to knowing what that will be like, and resolves to settle with what he has gathered already. He wonders if this is the night, the catalyst that leads to Sam taking on Lucifer's awful icy distance, and Dean cutting away all the gentler pieces of himself in self-defense.

Castiel downs a bottle of anxiety medication that is labeled 'Diazepam', flies to the unmarked remnant of a grave where first he brought Dean Winchester back into the world, and he leaves his bottles, all of his plastic and glass bottles strewn everywhere. He sits by the edge of the grave, and drinks and drinks until he has three empty snifters of brandy, a bottle of tequila nearly drained. 

A creeping sense of dizziness begins to slow his intake, until he becomes gradually aware of trails left by his fingers as he moves them. He falls back, laying on the ground beside Dean's exhumed grave, and stares at the sky, not moving, for three days. He barely breathes. 

If he were human, he would be dead. 

The pattern of the stars swirling through the sky leaves him breathless. He weeps at this world, and at the worlds beyond it, that he presumes were created by his Father, and he is consumed by a horrible, bitter feeling that feels like it burns, deep in his belly, right to his core. 

Castiel, for the first time, doubts. 

Perhaps this world is not the work of his Father, but some being much greater. Perhaps there are greater beings than even Death. Perhaps, perhaps, there are many gods and myths and magics. Perhaps they only think themselves immortal. It is a choking sensation, doubt, it boils in him and spreads and simmers and the more he tries to ignore the smell of it all, the less he is able. Something is not right. Something does not add up. Maybe, maybe-- maybe this is not his Father's world. 

Uriel's words come back, scornful and outraged, and there is regret just as easily as there is anger, there, welling around that too-fresh wound. _You haven't even met the man!_ And Castiel hasn't, or if he has, he cannot remmeber, or did not know. He weeps for Uriel, and then for Anna, and for every other brother and sister he has killed thus far. 

On the fourth day, consumed with guilt over the knowledge that he will surely kill more of his kindred, Castiel drowns himself in vodka and amphetamines, and his mind races. He counts every blade of grass in the clearing, every star (visible and non) that can be perceived from Earth's surface, he crawls, too shaky to stand, to the edge of the clearing and traces the lines of a tree from its furthest roots to its trunk. 

Here, he comes face to face with a caterpillar, green, bright green, like an artificially flavored candy or one of the starkly bright motel rooms where Dean and Sam Winchester spend their nights. 

He addresses it, huskily, his voice coming out rough from the gasoline-strength burn of the vodka. "You are a symbol of change. Literarily speaking."

It is a caterpillar. It does not respond as Castiel picks it up (gently) in both of Jimmy Novak's hands, except to urinate on them. 

It lightly stings. 

He frowns as the caterpillar inches along his fingers back towards the bark, and can only think through the rioting chaos of a mind going too fast, that there must be something of great import to what just happened. 

The caterpillar escapes long before Castiel has recovered, never to be seen again.


End file.
